Developing effective qualifying and questioning skills works to an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company technician’s benefit throughout an entire service or sales call. Service technicians and sales technicians can discover a client’s needs, wants, and concerns when they ask the right questions in the right way. Qualifying is not confined to one set amount of time within a call but rather it is more effective when it is used throughout all the 7 foundational steps of the sales process. In today’s post, we are going to explore the second step inside the sales process, the importance of Qualifying:
-Qualifying improves listening skills and aids in discovering information about the history of the product or system-
Asking the best questions, get the best answers. Learning to develop a keen understanding of root questions that guide the company-client conversation in the right direction allows a technician, CSR, or manager to have the freedom to listen for important information about the history of the client’s system or product. This process of discovery is very important at the beginning stages of company-to-client interaction because HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company team members can qualify in order to discover client concerns, expectations, wants as well as build rapport. When team members listen for background information and expectations then they can know how to prepare for the next stage of interaction, whether it be setting up a sales call, service call, maintenance plan, or offering add-on products. Qualifying develops these important listening skills inside an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company team, which leads to the important process of discovery.
-Qualifying helps build a stronger company-to-client relationship and increases company creditability and rapport-
Asking thoughtful questions and then being quite to listen also helps an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company build and maintain rapport with both their new clients and their longtime clients. Building rapport happens when clients feel that their thoughts are being heard and that their needs are being attended to by an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company that values its clients. When independent contracting company team members ask poignant discovery and guidance questions, then clients have the means to naturally answer the questions in a descriptive and detailed manner. When the qualifying process feels natural then clients may not even realize how much useful information they are conveying. But when company team members effectively use the client’s answers to guide the sales process or service process then clients get their questions answered, needs met, and expectations surpassed. This type of customer satisfaction is the first step to attaining a lifelong and fully satisfied client, who may refer more potential customers to your HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company.
-Qualifying reveals potential client objections or obstacles-
Along with discovering important history information and building rapport, qualifying also allows an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company to discover client objections and obstacles. The best time to address objections is before they even occur but if that is not possible, the next best thing is to discover them and overcome them as early as possible so they don’t become a threat to closing a sale. When a technician, CSR, or manager asks effective and poignant questions, then they can discover and hone in on areas that may arouse concern or question in order to put them to rest. Many times, objection areas can be discovered based on a client’s reaction to a certain topical question, by the amount of emphasis they place on a specific topic, or by the amount of response questions they ask in return to an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company team member. Team members have to be ready to quickly identify when clients are working to raise an objection because the more information that a service company gives to the client without first finding out what the client wants then the harder it will become to overcome the objection. For example, when a client asks about the types of warranties that your independent contracting company offers, an effective response would be, “we have several different types, what type of warranty were you looking for?” By responding to a question like this with another question, it allows an independent contracting company to first find out the client’s stance on the topic before revealing too much information.
Qualifying is an important component in the foundational steps of the sales process. Developing effective questioning skills allows for an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical independent contracting company to discover important information about the history of a client’s product, helps to build and maintain rapport, as well as allows for the discovery of potential objections so they can be effectively overcome. Thank you for following our weekly posts. Here at Service Excellence Training, we turn learning into earning!
-Resource curated by Whitney Stewart of Service Excellence Training.
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